“We Have to Make It Believable” – Sledgehammer Reveals How Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 Character Outfits Were Made “Realistic”

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 has been out for a few days now and players are enjoying various modes featured in it. Being a heavy budget, AAA first-person shooter game from Activision, the latest installment has got all the ingredients to make the action look believable. Similar to how its characters appear on screen with all of their uniquely designed personalities, and of course their costumes themselves.

The look of each character in Modern Warfare 3 appears to be on point. Undoubtedly, it is also similar to the previous titles in the rebooted franchise. However, Sledgehammer’s team has enhanced the already amazing quality by giving more attention to detail this time. In a recent media interaction, various people from the studio talked at length about all the aspects they kept in mind while designing character outfits in MW3.

This is how Sledgehammer made characters look “as realistic as possible” in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3

There’s a lot that goes behind creating authentic outfits for all individuals inside a Call of Duty game. Especially, when it comes to utilizing the technology and sheer scale of modern-day graphical tools to bring out compelling results. Tasha Valdez, who’s a senior associate scan technician at Sledgehammer Games, has spent almost 50 hours every week on sourcing and scanning clothing for Modern Warfare 3 characters.

While talking to a renowned news outlet recently, Valdez mentioned that her team tries to make it “look as realistic as possible.” She works closely with a character artist to create looks based on concepts for the characters.

Sledgehammer’s team has got a digital gear library that Valdez keeps filling up with items that can be brought together for looks. For example, they can be used for basic clothing, as well as jackets, boots, and belts. Valdez also revealed that she spends many hours while going through clothing racks. She checks each detail to make sure every costume fits well with every character according to the story.

“I’ve cultivated a habit of proactively seeking out unique items, even before they are incorporated into a specific concept,” she told Sarah Parvini from Los Angeles Times website during the interview.

In the interaction, it was also revealed that a team of five studio developers work on the main creation of a clothing asset. The process includes concepting, scanning, modeling, creating the in-game look, and final review. Furthermore, each character’s look is then determined according to the story, gameplay, environment, animation, and audio.

Another key member of the team, Jon Riva (content art director) told LA Times that he tries to make sure that characters don’t end up being similar to each other. He sits down with Campaign creative director David Swenson to determine the appearances keeping in mind the signature looks of certain individuals. For example, Captain Price’s boonie hat is something which is easily recognizable without making it blend in with any other character.

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Per Riva, the focus was to keep the costumes true to form for a military operation. “We have to make it believable, as close as real as we can without copying something else,” he said. Although it was a tough job, the team managed to make it all look as authentic and unique as possible.

So that’s about the character appearances in Modern Warfare 3. Members of Sledgehammer discussed what went into the designing of the character looks. Having released 3 days ago, surely many of you have spent plenty of hours already. What do you think about the character costumes?

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